A Finnish black metal Christmas carol

Like any good present worth waiting for, we need to unpack this one before you play with it.

From Helsinki, Ajattara started in the late 1996 and is still around. Not only do they do a banging black metal cover of 'Sika', they also have other Christmas songs, such as 'Ilon juhla' (2004) and 'Joulu' (2005). Go do some online crate digging if you need some ambient dark metal in your Christmas set.

'Sika' ('Pig' because Nordic countries have Christmas pigs) is a cover of a 1980 song by the late 1970s Finnish band Juice Leskinen Slam. The song tells of a family that raises a pig during the year and eventually slaughters and eats it. The words describe the pig's fate from a child's point of view. It's also one of the few Finnish carols that's not about Christmas trees, Santa Claus or anything religious.

If we can believe the Internet, Ajattara's Sika hit the number two spot on Finnish charts in 2006. Suomi on hieno maa!